ABSTRACT

If, as the communications scholar Miriam Metzger (2007) suggested, in the digital environment nearly anyone can be an author, in the open science environment nearly anyone can be a producer, consumer or analyser of data. At its most complete, the philosophy of ‘open science’ commits researchers to revealing and sharing the entirety of their practice: questions, data, methodologies, results, models, speculations, wrong turns and all (Nielsen, 2009). Open practice has the power to reveal formerly closed and silent parts of the scientific process, so that anyone, from professional colleagues to interested members of the public (at least, those with internet access), can have direct, unmediated access to research: can indeed ‘have it all’. This chapter argues that breaking the silences of scientific practice raises a number of concerns for both professional and non-professional participants in open science.